Mechanistic modelling of multitargeted therapeutics

Pancreatic cancers remain intractable, resulting in high mortality. Thus, there is an urgent need for innovative ways to tackle this disease. Aberrant epigenetics is a key "Hallmark of cancer" that cancer cells use to drive de-differentiation of normal cells into an embryonic squamous-like state which favours uncontrolled proliferation. We recently identified the epigenetic mechanism defining these phenotypic changes and found that a combination of biologically-targeted agents (Metformin and Vitamin C) could restore epigenetic control and revert squamous pancreatic cancer cells to a more regulated differentiated state [1]. Although we observe a shift towards normal cell epigenetics, this drug combination is not fully optimised to drive the phenotypic shift. Therefore, we aim to use an innovative data-driven artificial intelligence (AI) approach developed by Epicombi.ai, based on existing algorithms[2], to delineate novel molecules that can demonstrate improved and robust re-normalisation of epigenetic status and pancreatic differentiation, in order to offer new treatments for this hitherto intractable cancer.

Our aim is to develop mechanistic mathematical models for AI-derived molecules targeting pancreatic cancer.

The proposed project will explore the mechanism of action of molecules predicted by a AI/Machine Learning platform (Epicombi.ai) to modify cellular phenotype. This project will centre on the development of mechanistic models [3,4] to better understand how these novel agents achieve phenotypic changes through the perturbation of relevant cellular signalling networks. These molecules are likely to have multiple cellular targets, perturbing a number of signalling pathways, which may all combine to achieving phenotypic normalisation of the cell. Thus, mechanistic modelling is required to understand how such a 'multi-intervention' molecule functions to alter cell signalling networks. The models will then be employed to further refine the platform discovery and optimisation engine, and provide a mechanistic underpinning of Epicombi.ai data-driven drug-discovery platform to identify optimised drugs for this therapeutic indication.